Tag Archives: emergency

The ZeroHour Relic XR lights up your path when you find yourself in the dark and powers up your mobile devices when you need to use them the most. It’s a flashlight-slash-power bank that’ll definitely come in handy in times of emergency. It’s also pretty handy to have when you’re out in the great outdoors or when you’re travelling.

The ZeroHour is crafted from aircraft grade aluminum and illuminates with its 1000-lumen capacity Cree XLamp XP- LED. It’s up for funding on Kickstarter, where a minimum pledge of $130 will get you one of your very own.

Two things you need during an emergency: your survival kit and the SpareOne Plus Emergency Phone. It’s a charge-free mobile phone that won’t fail you when you need it the most. It’s powered by an AA battery and provides up to 10 hours of talk time. It does away with most features that you’d find on a phone and keeps it to the essentials– the very essentials that might just save your life.

Other features include a panic siren and an SOS flashlight. Just stock up on batteries and you’ll be good until help arrives. It’s currently on sale for $39.99.

If the blade on your multi-tool just doesn’t cut it, then you might want to check the SOG Key Knife out. It looks like a key, although it’s a bit thicker than the average because it packs a small-but-still-functional blade right in the shaft. You can go for a plain blade or a Key Knife with a nail file if you’re the type who picks at your nails a lot.

The Key Knife will set you back about $10-$11, whichever type you pick.

When it rains, it pours. And when there’s a blackout, well, that’s seemingly the only time when you seem to have misplaced all of your batteries… batteries which you could have otherwise used to power up your flashlight. The good news is that there’s an alternative torch by Eton called the Blackout Buddy H2O.

Its name gives a clue when it comes to what it needs to power up, and it ain’t batteries. Yep, you got that right: this handy flashlight needs nothing but water to run. Just put the Blackout Buddy into a cup that’s filled with water and boom, you’ve got light. It can provide up to 72 hours of illumination, which should hopefully be more than enough. The best part? It retails for only $10.

Now who doesn’t need a bottle opener, can opener, screw driver, or a ruler every once in a while? It’s no problem at all if you’re at home and have full access to your toolbox. It becomes a problem if you’re out and about and find yourself needing one or two or more of these tools. The solution? Keep one of these handy-dandy credit card-sized multi-tools in your wallet.

This particular one is the Wallet Ninja, and it’s one of the funner multi-tools out there that sports a fun design and a bevy of tools and features that the average ninja would need, including a slot where you’re supposed to insert a card to transform it into a phone stand. Made from heat-treated steal, the Wallet Ninja is all of the above and more: a bottle opener, a ruler, a letter opener, six different sized hex wrenches, a fruit peeler, a can opener, and a Philips or flathead screw driver.

There are times when cellular services just stop working. Whether it’s because we’re off the grid in the wilderness, or in the middle of a natural disaster, our lives have become dependant on being able to communicate with one another and when outages happen, we tend to freak out. GoTenna is a device that connects to a smartphone and allows it to communicate with another GoTenna-connected phone, even when you have no service. It uses low-frequency radio waves to transmit low-density data over long distances, which in ideal conditions can give you a 50.5 miles range. You can send texts to one another, or share locations so you can find your loved ones even when everyone around you is desperately trying to use their cellphones to do the same. You can even send encrypted messages to one another which aren’t stored anywhere.

It’s a powerful device with tons of features and we feel it completely warrants the $150/pair asking price. That’s the pre-order rate, which is expected to go up to $300 for a pair once it fully hits retail distribution. It ships in late Fall 2014.

There are a number of portable phone chargers currently available, but most of these are bulky and are pretty much a hassle to carry around–especially if you’re a guy (who doesn’t carry a bag) or a girl (who doesn’t carry a purse).

And then came the Fuel emergency charger. It’s creators claim that it’s ‘the world’s smallest cell phone charger’, and they might just be right. It’s the same size as your typical keyring–it measures 1.3 by 0.9 by half an inch–but don’t let it’s compact size fool you.

The first thing most people do when disaster strikes is call 911 when they’re in trouble. When they’re not, they immediately bring out the phone book and check up on family, friends, and other relatives. You can’t get help or reach out to give help without a phone, obviously, and it’s unfortunate that most phones in the market today don’t really have the best battery lives that’ll let you do all this in times of great emergency.

When you’re out of power and poking around in the dark, a flashlight is always useful. But you know what ends up happening half the time, right? The batteries are out, and then you have to fumble in the dark looking for new ones, and well, they’re never the right ones. Panasonic seems to have solved this issue by manufacturing a flashlight, called the Any Battery Light, that can not only accept batteries of any size, but also any number of them. So if all you have is a single AA battery, the light will still work, only for less time than if you’d loaded it up with a bunch. If you insert one of every type of supported battery (AA, AAA, D and C), the device would last for about 86h, which is plenty. Best of all, it’s expected to run about 2,000 yen (US$24), so there’s really no reason not to have one in a drawer somewhere.

It’s available starting January 24th, though we’re unsure on which markets. Probably Japan.

OhGizmo! is a frequently updated blog that focuses on covering items that will appeal to a very specific and often very passionate audience: the geek. Aside from the fare of innovative consumer electronic products, the reader can expect to find news about geek culture, absurd inventions, awe inspiring technology, and an ever growing assortment of articles that we like to think fit within our view of what we’re calling the Geek Lifestyle.